Adherents.com: Religious Groups in Literature

34,420 citations from literature (mostly science fiction and fantasy) referring to real churches, religious groups, tribes, etc. [This database is for literary research only. It is not intended as a source of information about religion.]

Buddhism, continued...

Dietz, William C. Where the Ships Die. New York: Berkley (1996); pg. 108.

"...Natalie lowered herself to the mat, considered the lotus position, and decided against it. Not because of the religious significance . . . but because she wasn't sure she could pull it off. "

Buddhism

galaxy

4000

Benford, Gregory. Furious Gulf. New York: Bantam (1994); pg. 265.

[Actual year unknown.] "He approached on the balls of his feet. She was sprawled out glassy-eyed. Carefully he bent down and took the pouch. It was heavy.

Her eyeballs followed him as he checked over her hear. One eyebrow twitched angrily.

'Banshee, yeasay?'

Her indices said she was something called Bahai. He fished an Aspect chip out of the pouch and pressed it against his wrist reader. The tiny hexagonal crystal there was cracked from some old accident but the optical pipe into his bone still worked. It told him that the Aspect was damaged and had been a woman in the Buddha Gathering, which he supposed was some kind of Family. "

[Epigraph] "The Universe is a place inaccessible, unintelligible, completely absurd . . . from which life--especially rational life--is estranged. There is no place of safety, or basic principle upon which the Universe depends. There are only transitory, masked relationships, confined within limited dimensions, and bound for inevitable change.--Meditations from Bifrost Eyrie, Buddislamic Text "

Buddhism

galaxy

5000

Le Guin, Ursula K. The Telling. New York: Harcourt (2000); pg. 102.

"...she defined the Akan system as a religion-philosophy of the type of Buddhism or Taoism, which she had learned about during her Terran education: what the Hainish, with their passion for lists and categories, called a religion of process... "

"It was quicker for a computer fastlinked to an ansible to read its commands from other worlds--from Zanzibar, Calicut, Trondheim, Gautama, Earth... " [That an entire planet was named 'Gautama' suggests it was settled by Buddhist colonists, and set up under a 'Buddhist license,' that is, with Buddhism as the state religion, just as Lusitania was set up under a Catholic license and Trondheim under a Lutheran license.]

Buddhism

galaxy

5298

Card, Orson Scott. Xenocide. New York: Tor (1991); pg. 405.

"So this was Andrew Wiggin, the Speaker for the Dead. He didn't look ancient and wise at all, not they way Master Han did. Instead this Wiggin looked foolishly surprised, the way all round-eyes did, and his face changed with every momentary mood, as if were out of control. Yet there was that look of peace about him. Perhaps he had some of the Buddha in him. Buddha, after all, had found his own way onto the Path. Maybe this Andrew Wiggin had found a way onto the Path, even though he wasn't Chinese at all. "

Buddhism

galaxy

13500

Herbert, Frank. Dune. Philadelphia: Chilton Book Co. (1965); pg. 497.

"...the religious beliefs dominant in the Imperium up to the time of Maud'Dib [include] The so-called Ancient Teachings--including those preserved by the Zensunni Wanderers... the Buddislamic Variants of the types dominant at Lankiveil and Sikun, the Blend Books of the Mahayana Lankavara, the Zen Hekiganshu of III Delta Pavonis... "

[Definitions in 'Terminology of the Imperium'] "ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE: the 'Accumulated Book,' the religious text produced by the Commission of Ecumenical Translators. It contains elements of most ancient religions, including the Maometh Saari, Mahayana Christianity, Zensunni Catholicism and Buddislamic traditions. " [bold added to emphasize applicable segments]

[Year is estimated.] "The Customs official's name was Jogoroth Sobhaddartha and hehad been serving on the station on and off for half his life... the current Head of Customs had been a Dreamer... The Head, who bore the equally Sayshellian name of Namarath Godhisavatta, was concerned with a matter involving some computer-born data and did not look up... Godhisavatta looked up now. He was a small man, with eyes that were almost black and that were surrounded by fine wrinkles... Sobhaddartha straightened... Godhisavatta sat back in his chair... " [Buddhism is not mentioned by name, nor anything Buddhist described. But the names of the two characters in this passage are derived from two major words in Buddhism: 'Godhisavatta' is from the word 'bodhisattva', a term for a Buddhist god or angel. 'Sobhaddartha' is from 'Siddhartha Gautama', the name of the man who became the Buddha. Note that the first letter of of the two words has been switched.]

"She glanced at her watch. It was time for the art tour. The daily activity sheet had said only to meet near the Buddhas in the main lobby, but Eleanor saw no one else waiting. The Buddhas appeared to be made of gilt bronze and, upon closer inspection, were not Buddhas at all. Eleanor had spent enough time traveling the Pacific Rim to identify these as kneeling 'Buddhist Disciples,' their palms set together in prayer, their bodies thin under the gilded bronze-and-mirrored glass robes. She thought that they were probably from Thailand or Cambodia.

"'The Bey knows about its name, Hegira,' Barthel said. 'It refers to the flight of Momad from Mecca, among the First-born. The Qur'an tells many such wonderful tales. Not Yesu, not the Lotus Contemplative [Buddha], nor any other claim that namesake -- not even, pardon my obstinance, Bey -- Eloshim.' "

Buddhism

India

-445 B.C.E.

Vidal, Gore. Creation. New York: Random House (1981); pg. 163.

"'This is where Gotama sat when he first came to Varanasi.' The young teacher pointed at a tree whose only distinction was that no one went near it except to stare, as we were going.

'Who?' I'm afraid that I had managed to forget the name that he had told me only an hour before.

'Gotama. We call him the Buddha.'

'Oh, yes. Your teacher.'

'Our teacher.' My companion was matter-of-fact. 'Under that bo tree, he experienced enlightenment. He became the Buddha.'

I listened with less than half an ear. I was not interested in Siddhartha Gotama and his enlightenment. But I was interested to learn that King Bimbisara was a Buddhist; and I remember thinking to myself, Yes, he's a Buddhist in the same way that Darius is a Zoroastrian. Kings are always respectful of popular religions.

As we parted I told the young man that I was leaving for Rajagriha.

'Then you are already in the Buddh'a footsteps.' The young man was entirely serious. "

Buddhism

India

-445 B.C.E.

Vidal, Gore. Creation. New York: Random House (1981); pg. 170.

"I got the point. 'You mean the Jains?'

'And the Buddhists. And those who follow Gosala. You must have noticed that the so-called Mahavira and the so-called Buddha are not Aryans. Worst of all, both come from the republics.'

'But I thought your king was a patron of the Buddha . . .' "

Buddhism

India

-445 B.C.E.

Vidal, Gore. Creation. New York: Random House (1981), book jacket.

Book jacket: "With this epic novel of the fifth century B.C. Gore Vidal returns to the genre of which he is an acknowledged master: great historical fiction... The fifth century was perhaps the most spectacular period in the history of mankind--the age of the Persian kings Darius and Xerxes, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Pericles, and of the first explorations into the human soul and the mysteries of the universe. Through Vidal's hero-narrator, Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster, we witness at first hand the wonders of the epoch. "

Buddhism

India

-209 B.C.E.

Anderson, Poul. The Shield of Time. New York: Tor (1990); pg. 38.

"209 B.C. At last the teaching of Gautama Buddha would ebb from his native India until there it was all but forgotten. Today it still flourished, and the tide of it flowed strongly outward. "

Buddhism

India

1872

Verne, Jules. Around the World in Eighty Days. Translated by George M. Towle. New York: Bantam (1988; c. 1873); pg. 55.

[Chapter 14] Through the windows of their carriage the travellers had glimpses of the diversified landscape of Behar, with its mountains clothed in verdure, its fields of barley, wheat, and corn, its jungles peopled with green alligators, its neat villages, and its still thickly-leaved forests. Elephants were bathing in the waters of the sacred river, and groups of Indians, despite the advanced season and chilly air, were performing solemnly their pious ablutions. These were fervent Brahmins, the bitterest foes of Buddhism, their deities being Vishnu... [Other refs., not in DB.]

Buddhism

India

1989

Simmons, Dan. Phases of Gravity. New York: Bantam (1989); pg. 21.

In Benares/Varanasi: "'This is the holiest spot in the world,' said the guide... 'Holier than Mecca. Holier than Jerusalem. Holier than Bethlehem or Sarnath. It is the holiest of temples where all Hindus . . . after bathing in the holy Ganges . . . wish to visit before they die.' " [Many refs., not in DB.]

"'He's a Hindu, as are most of our people,' the matron explained. 'Though he tells me this thinking has been much influenced by the teachings of Buddhism--which began, after all, as a Hindu heresy.' "

Buddhism

India: Bombay

1872

Verne, Jules. Around the World in Eighty Days. Translated by George M. Towle. New York: Bantam (1988; c. 1873); pg. 32.

"As for the wonders of Bombay... its forts and docks, its bazaars, mosques, synagogues, its Armenian churches, and the noble pagoda on Malebar Hill with its two polygonal towers--he cared not a straw to see them. He would not deign to examine even the masterpieces of Elephanta, or the mysterious hypogea, concealed south-east from the docks, or those fine remains of Buddhist architecture, the Kanherian grottoes of the island of Salcette. "

Buddhism

India: Calcutta

1977

Simmons, Dan. Song of Kali. New York: Tor (1998; c. 1985); pg. 27.

Pg. 27: "'I quit in disgust when a fool professor would not accept my paper on Walt Whitman's debt to Zen Buddhism. An arrogant, parochial fool.' "; Pg. 221: "A kerosene lantern sat on a wooden shelf next to a porcelain cup, some wooden bowls, a few books, and a tiny bronze statue of the Buddha. Strange that the avatar of Kali should keep an image of Buddha near. "

Buddhism

Indonesia: Java

1999

Hand, Elizabeth. Glimmering. New York: HarperCollins (1997); pg. 37.

"Then the channel changed again. The moss-grown ruins of a pagan temple filled the screen.

'. . . ritual in Probolinggo, Java,' a woman's voice said softly... On the temple steps stood a beautiful young man wearing mask-white makeup and silks stiff with pearls and glass beads. From his head rose a crown made of tropical flowers and long blue-black feathers. It trembled as he danced, his bare feet sliding across a crackled stone platform strewn with leaves. Behind the dancer the sky rippled mauve and grass green. The narrator, her voice sibilant and hushed as a child's, recited in perfect, Oxford-accented English:

King Klono, the wanderer from afar, has come to Java seeking the Princess Chandra Kirana. He has seen her only in his dreams and fallen in love with her... he is a god; but even gods die if they forsake their kingdoms for the base hungers of the world. So did the Victorious One, the Buddha, warn us...' "

Pg. 8: "More mysterious still... was the matter of the two Hare Krishna types he had seen emerging from the cave... "; Pg. 9: "Even as Scanlan gasped, the blur resolved itself into one of the Hare Krishnas--or maybe he was some sort of Oriental monk, come to think of it...

He had never heard of Hare Krishnas being other than peaceable and nonviolent, but there was something not right about these two. " [Other refs., not in DB, to the two orange-robed men, who aren't actually Hare Krishnas, but do belong to a sect of Buddhism.]

Buddhism

Japan

1221 C.E.

Anderson, Poul. The Boat of a Million Years. New York: Tor (1989); pg. 142.

"Solemnly, she recited a passage she had chosen from the Lotus Sutra. Yasuhira's manner was as grave when he told her, 'Yes, that suffices me.' He was of the Amidist sect, which held that the Buddha himself watches over mankind. "

Buddhism

Japan

1872

Verne, Jules. Around the World in Eighty Days. Translated by George M. Towle. New York: Bantam (1988; c. 1873); pg. 93.

[Chapter 22] There Passepartout beheld beautiful fir and cedar groves, sacred gates of a singular architecture, bridges half hid in the midst of bamboos and reeds, temples shaded by immense cedar-trees, holy retreats where were sheltered Buddhist priests and sectaries of Confucius, and interminable streets, where a perfect harvest of rose-tinted and red-cheeked children, who looked as if they had been cut out of Japanese screens, and who were playing in the midst of short-legged poodles and yellowish cats, might have been gathered.

The streets were crowded with people. Priests were passing in processions, beating their dreary tambourines...

"Robby showed no awareness that Bremen had entered the room. The boy looked absurd dressed in a striped, green top and orange shorts that were too tight to button. Bremen thought of a broken, bronze Buddha he had seen once near Osaka. What if this child harbored some deep wisdom born of his long seclusion from the world? "

Buddhism

Japan

1999

Sagan, Carl. Contact. New York: Simon & Schuster (1985); pg. 222.

"With so many enigmatic diagrams to interpret, it was inevitable that many religions would recognize some of their iconogrphy in the Message from the stars. A principal cross section of the Machine looked something like a chrysanthemum, a fact that stirred great enthusiasm in Japan. "

Buddhism

Japan

1999

Sagan, Carl. Contact. New York: Simon & Schuster (1985); pg. 300.

"What could she say about the meeting the Five had with Emperor Akihito? Were there discussions with Shinto and Buddhist leaders part of a general effort by the Machine Project to gain insights of world religious figurres before the Machine was activated, or just a courtesy to Japan as the host country? "

Buddhism

Japan

1999

Sagan, Carl. Contact. New York: Simon & Schuster (1985); pg. 312.

"The Sufis, he explained after the evening with Abbot Utsumi, were to Islam what Zen was to Buddhism. Ahmadiyah proclaimed 'a jihad of the pen, not the sword.' "

"So Mitsu knew that he could not marry Elizabeth openly, honestly, as he wanted to.. Instead, he took her to a monastery in the remote mountains of Kyushu, where he had perfected his climbing skills. "

"Behind Takagishi, on the path that led back to the main wooden building of the temple, three Buddhist monks walked briskly past. Despite the cold, they were dressed lightly in their usual charcoal gray smocks, their feet exposed to the cold in open sandals... Nicole, who had been listening intently to Takagishi for almost an hour, momentarily diverted her attention to the three monks now purposefully climbing the stairs in the distance. Their eyes are so serene, she thought. There lives so free of contradiction. Onemindedness can be a virtue. It makes all the answers easy. For just a moment she was envious of the monks and their ordered existence. She wondered how well they would handle the dilemma that Dr. Takagishi was presenting her. "

"She [my mother] tried to keep the circular trays filled with slides--each one held a hundred... It was not that she lacked a sense of humor, but that for her the wheel of slides represented a living world, a mandala of bright, recapturable experience. Her fun lay in reexperiencing each brilliant epiphany in the show. "

Buddhism

Kansas

1989

Denton, Bradley. Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede. New York: William Morrow and Co. (1991); pg. 50.

"The only way to escape this truth is to deny the reality from which it has been created, to exist in some other universe altogether.

So it is time to believe in flying saucers... Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Mississippi welcomes visiting Jews... My son Oliver is the reincarnation not only of Buddy Holly, but of the Buddha. Mama is the reincarnation of Lot's wife. "

[Year estimated. Pages 3 through 10 describe the ancient origin of the titular "Jewels of Cyttorak. " The entire chapter takes place in a temple with monks. Although not explicitly identified as Buddhist, the monks and temple described (and pictured in the drawing on page 2) seem to be Buddhist, with Hindu influence, perhaps similar to Angkor Wat-era Cambodian Buddhism. Location of temple identified as Korean on pg. 21.] "The intense heat and mid-thick humidity smothered the jungle like a blanket tucked in tight on all four corners of a bed. All noises were muffled and everything was wet to the touch. Just simple breathing seemed harder than normal. Even the light of the sun fought to get through the thick air to warm the damp ground. " [Other refs. in this chapter, not in DB, none mention Buddhism by name.]

"Two brown-robed monks were the only life moving this hot afternoon, as they walked with their faces turned downward at the moist soil of the jungle floor. The then, rough fabric of their robes clung to them, showing wet outlines of legs and arms. Sweat coated both their faces, dripping from their chins. Their eyes were blank, their pace measured, controlled through the thick heat.

The path curved ahead of them like a snake winding its way around trees and brush. The two had walked this path every day for the past nine years, but always much earlier in the morning, just after dawn, when the mist and the air had a slight touch of coolness to it.

And before today they had always walked it with many others of their order. Never had they gone alone before. The others would be shocked if they knew. "

"No records or stories of the temple's builders had passed down through the centuries.

Only a name: Cyttorak.

It was a sacred place, the temple of Cyttorak.

A place of great power.

A place that allowed mere men to feel closer to their god. Only the monks dared go inside, and only during the early morning hours. After that, not even the monks entered the sacred place.

Until today.

Now, the two monks blindly followed the path, not looking forward or upwards at the temple of Cyttorak, only down at their feet, as if ashamed of what they were about to attempt. And they would have been ashamed, if they had been aware.

But the power of Cyttorak had reached them. And now drew them to a task.

They were to be the vessels that would carry the power of Cyttorak into the world. "

"The other two pieces, fueled by the otherdimensional power of Cyttorak, were sent spinning through space and time into the future.

After a moment, the dust from the monks' bones settled and only one light shaft still shown down on the creature, now holding only a bright ruby, as if offering it to the first person who would come along and take it.

It would be centuries, long after the temple had crumpled into a pile of stones and Cyttorak was only a long-ago memory, before Cain Marko came along and did just that. "

But they did not. They simply moved like zombies, one step at a time through the humidity, drawn to a task they were unaware of doing.

The path turned upward and moved out of the jungle, twisting back and forth past rocks, climbing toward a stone temple half-built, half-carved from the face of the rock bluff. The temple dominated the valley below on clear days, seeming to rule over the world of real life in the jungle.

On closer inspection, the temple looked ancient and was in desperate need of repair, but there was no one to repair it. he great structure had been built by an unknown people ages before the two monks were born. "

"A hundred paces behind the two monks another monk followed, staying to the edge of the trail, ready to duck behind a brush or tree at any moment. Unlike the two young monks being drawn to the temple, he was old, his beard gray. For his entire life, he and the other elders of the monastery had waited for this day. And worried about it happening.

For centuries, the elder monks had guarded the temple, passing down the guard duty generation after generation.

Now, during his time of watch, it was happening. Cyttorak was again calling to younger members of the order, as had been foretold. It was his duty to stop the calling by any means possible.

Other elders would be following to help, but they might not arrive in time. Fear gripped him, but he forced it aside and moved on after the two young monks. He had spent his life preparing for this moment. He would not fail now. " [More: pgs. 5-10.]

"'It happened back when I was stationed in Korea with the Army Corps of Engineers. My unit was working on building a bunker in what looked to be the remains of an old temple built into a rock face. One hot morning, out of the blue, an old monk approached us and told us a story of the former god of the temple, a monstrous being name 'Cyttorak.'

'Doesn't sound like a Korean name to me,' Robert said.

'It's not,' the old man said. 'The monk told us the god was before time, and not from our world. He said the temple was not a place for man.' " [Other refs. to this temple, pg. 22-24.]

"Religious-seeming statuary was discretly placed and illumined, but devoid of any specific connotations... Living palms, violets, wheat, passion vflowers, clover and ivy: each might be a symbol, but none had to be symbolic. Some of the abstracts resembled a crucifix from one angle, a Buddha from another, and something suggestive of Mohammedanism from a third--none being certain. "

"Congreve... had assembled a delegation from every religious group in town except for... Jehovah's Witnesses and the Vedanta Buddhist Temple, which in any case was only Annie Stoller and some of her New Age friends sitting cross-legged in the back of Annie's self-help store. "

Buddhism

Nevada

1991

Ing, Dean. The Nemesis Mission. New York: Tor (1991); pg. 87.

"...he made the faintest kind of bow toward Merle Givens before sitting down, and still he maintained the smile of Buddha. "

"The giant, wet all over, got to his feet. 'Shoot it is. I escaped once and so did you. Once, I think, is about all you can expect. God, Allah, Jahweh, Buddha, Thor, et alia have blessed us a single time re escaping...' "

"'Did you notice all the artistic and cultural touches in our home?' Ishaq asked, indicating an especially exquisite Buddha figurine. 'Those were a part of my father's work. He thinks it's very important to preserve our heritage. As a matter of fact, he says it's as much a part of humanity's hope for the future as any other part of the Titan Project.' He shrugged. 'That's why my father became a teacher when we got to New Marrakech. He told me he taught your grandmother the mythology of Earth's southern hemisphere.' "

"Mohammed... showed her and Ishaq images of sculptures, and architecture--the Parthenon, the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, the extravagant casinos of Las Vegas. He loved his small Buddha statuette, proudly displayed on a shelf in their main living area. Each example had a particularly Human stamp that seemed more magnificent than the wonders of the Spiral Arm... "

Pg. 29: "One of Mohammed's hands clutched the beautiful Buddha figurine he had always treasured. In his other hand, he held a holoscroll... "; Pg. 32: "The man's hands clutched and grasped, searching for something. Akima held out the alabaster Buddha figurine and the holoscroll that he had tried to rescue from the house. 'I've got them, Mohammed--whatever they are,' she said. "

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